Well, much to David’s relief and our gratitude, the book is nearly ready for release, and will be out later this year. We can’t say when yet, but I’m looking forward to reading an advance copy and interviewing David again as the date draws near. For now, we’ve got a cool promotion that David cooked up. Since this book is all about the early years of Blizzard North and the creation of Diablo 1, David wants to hear your best stories about corpse runs in Diablo 1.

Recall that death in Diablo 1 was not like Diablo 2 and certainly unlike the very minor inconvenience that is non-HC in Diablo 3. In the good old days, when you died to a monster you really died — all of your gear fountained out right onto the dungeon floor, and if you wanted it back you had to restart in town, make your way back down to your corpse, and then somehow deal with the monsters standing over your body. The best case scenario was dying near an internal dungeon wall, so that you could return through a cleared area and use Telekinesis to grab your gear over the wall. That was seldom the case though, and players often had to use themselves as naked, toothless bait, desperately trying to dodge and herd and Stone Curse the enemies away from the equipment you were helpless without.

Even as I type this numerous such adventures are returning to my memory…

If you share similar memories of such delightful torture in D1, here’s your chance to leverage them into fame and fortune. We’re teaming up with David Craddock to collect the best stories of your Diablo 1 corpse runs. Entries can be up to 300 words in length and should be posted in comments to this news post. The one judged best will win a free copy of his book when it’s published later this year, and the winner will be included in the book itself!

Click through for the full contest rules and guidelines, and good luck. You’ve got until next week to submit your entry, but don’t delay. As Cain might have said, “Stay awhile and narrate.”

Here’s the official description and rules for the contest, as submitted to us by David Craddock. Read them and then hit your Diablo 1 corpse run story in the comments, for all to regard with fear and wonder.

Diablo.IncGamers and DM Press Present: “You Can’t Take It with You” Contest

“You can’t take it with you,” as the saying goes. When we shuffle off this mortal coil, we leave behind all our material goods. Death is not quite as final in Diablo. Your avatar lets loose a blood-curdling scream and crumples to the ground, clutching all the loot you held upon your demise.

Fortunately, you’re down and out only as long as it takes for your friends to jump online and formulate a plan to help you survive the corpse run–a suicidal charge right back into the danger you escaped in an effort to retrieve the hard-won sword, helm, armor, and ability-boosting rings left to rot on the bloody stone floor.

DM Press, publisher of the Stay Awhile and Listen series, and Diablo.IncGamers want to hear your best corpse run story from the original Diablo. Tell us about your narrowest escape or your desperation to reclaim a ring so powerful you couldn’t imagine ever challenging Hell’s hordes again without it. Or perhaps you were the savior, a hero willing to attract the attention of a pack of demons while the stranger you met moments ago on Battle.net darted in to salvage his cadaver’s trinkets.

To enter the “You Can’t Take It with You” contest, register an account on Diablo.IncGamers and submit a story of no more than 300 words describing your most memorable corpse run in the comments section below. All entries must be received before August 31, 2013, at 12:01 am Pacific. Entry is limited to one story per participant. The winning entry will be published in the first volume of Stay Awhile and Listen, and the author of the winning entry will receive a free copy of the eBook on the Kindle, iTunes, or Nook eBook platform. Five runners-up will see their entries commemorated in the DM Press Hall of Heroes, an online gallery dedicated to the most campfire-worthy stories our readers have to offer.

Please note that we will only consider corpse run stories from the first Diablo, not Diablo II.

Rules

* Contest open to registered Diablo.IncGamers users only and are subject to Diablo.IncGamers.com rules, eligibility, and guidelines.

* Stories must not exceed 300 words in length and must be submitted to the Diablo.IncGamers article entitled “Diablo.IncGamers and DM Press Present: You Can’t Take It with You.” Stories concerning corpse runs in Diablo II will not be considered.

* Deadline: Entries must be submitted by Tuesday, September 3, 2013, at 11:59pm Pacific.

* Diablo.IncGamers and DM Press editors will select a winner and five runners-up from all submitted entries. Winners and runners-up will be announced on September 5, 2013. The winner will receive ONE COPY of the first Stay Awhile and Listen book on the Nook, Kindle, or iTunes eBook platforms on the day of the book’s release. Stay Awhile and Listen release date to be determined.

* DM Press reserves the right to publish any and all stories in printed and electronic editions of Stay Awhile and Listen, as well as promotional materials included by not limited to websites and social media networks.

I dont know about stories but I recall it was quite funny when I was watching my friend playing d1 back in 1996 or something and he died in hell in a tough place. He shouted “Daaad!!, come get my items back”.. as his dad was 30yo diablo freak =D

My friend and I were playing Diablo I and we had spent a good 6 hours making our way past the skeleton king, we had played the game many times before, but we had never actually gotten as far as this. Fortunately for us we ended up farming a plethora of amazing uniques so as such we were bashing through nearly everything.

Unfortunately we soon found out that Diablo I is a fairly hard game and that not all uniques provided the most… positive of benefits. We headed down into the caves thinking we were going to just destroy through like we had before, we soon found ourselves getting surrounded by all the monsters and my friend died, but I managed to snake my way out of the caves.

So here we were, my friend’s body unrecoverable because of the congregate of monsters having a party on his body and me too terrified to risk going back. I said we should just farm up and get him new items, but apparently his items were more valuable than my safety.

The perfect plan we devised was that I would run through the dungeon leading the monsters away from his body using the excellent parkour skills I had honed from our last encounter. Sure enough I went scrambling down into the caves leading the monsters away, but only about half of them followed and the other half stayed on his corpse, I waited eagerly for him to come in and try to reclaim his gear.

Well as it turns out internet in the dial up days was not so reliable, while I was running through the dungeon I ended up dead and he ended up getting a phone call and disconnecting, so our bodies and loot were lost forever in those caves.

This seems a rather odd question. I played D1 constantly and never had a single corpse run. Why? Because when you die in single player you just reload your save (might be better or worse) and since single player had all the content that’s what most people played. That’s why almost no one is responding.

I can’t remember any specific runs, but I definitely remember this activity, creeping inch by inch through Hell, hoping not to aggro the enemies around the corner (knights, serpents, blood witches, mages… can’t decide which was the worst!) And since money was an inventory item, you could only buy so many potions to assist your runs, so your number of chances was pretty finite. And good luck if you managed to die near the stairs, or accidentally pull enemies back to the stairs while running away!

The second level of the labyrinth. Behind are the first fallen and skeletons and I feel that I am already starting to get the hang of it. I am confident enough to open the door and go boldly forward, fighting the scavengers, and zombies who die cheerfully and without hassle. But I have no clue what a monster is waiting for me behind one of these doors … In the center of a vast room is a small-looking chamber, and I open it fearlessly. And then, like a jack-of-the-box, on one of the most terrifying monsters in the game world attacks me.

– Ahh… fresh meat! – He growls in a terrible hoarse voice and with surprising for his physique agility comes at me. His hands hold a huge cleaver covered in blood. A couple of strokes

It was my fist time in hell/hell. My warrior was not ready. A stronger friend setup the game using a shaky connection via modem. He went in first, I followed a bit later. I exited the stairway to hell and walked up through a long room, turning right at the end. His rogue was picking a lone monster, arrow by arrow. I rushed in, sprawling its guts on the floor. Impatient, I went alone through the corridor, then a small room, another corridor and found myself at a new large room going up. A LOT of lightining demons appeared and I had to flee, but several packs of hiddens trapped me. I fought my way out desperately, using almost all my potions, and managed to make an opening. I began to flee with the right hand and type “RUN” with the left, even as I saw the rogue still standing at the same spot, a horde of monsters at my back. She stood and fought so I could flee to the stairs.

I stopped there to catch my breath and heal. Moments later a few lightning bolts started appearing. Then MANY more. And there was the rogue, running for her life, the same horde at her back. Before I could close my inventory, a pack of hiddens trapped me again, and there I fell. The same pack killed the rogue shortly after.

The rest of the game was almost a mini-game of gear recovery through death and horror. We tried using our secondary gear, then using all our money for a tertiary gear, then going “naked”, until we finally got our original gear back. All the while we prayed that the modem line wouldn’t break, because modem games on shaky lines were the devil’s worst weapon.

While in college, we used to hold all night game sessions in the computer labs over the weekends. Arriving late one night, I started up a single player game of Diablo, but soon found my character stuck due a combination of rushing and having been unwise with my skill point distribution. My warrior was cornered (and killed) by both ranged and melee monsters in one of the deep caverns.

As the other gamers in our group took a break from what they were playing, they’d come over to watch me desperately failing at retrieving my corpse. One guy in our group swore he’d be able to reach my corpse easily, but it would require him spending the remainder of my gold on scrolls, potions, and new armor and weapons. To stop his seemingly endless bragging, I finally turned my chair over to him so he could prove himself. By that time, we’d attracted a small crowd of gamers around my station, and a few even began making wagers. To the moans and laughter of the group, the ‘hotshot,’ who thought for sure he’d be able to reclaim my corpse, died almost instantly as he tried to take on the monsters in a full frontal assault.

For the remainder of the evening, it became the secondary attraction of whoever was on break to take a turn at running my now armor-less character, with the wimpiest ranged weapon we were unlucky to find, against the horde of monsters now guarding my corpse and other loot we’d lost through countless other attempts.

It wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning that we’d whittled down all the monsters to the point we could start to reclaim the loot we’d lost and finally outfit my character in his original gear.